Why had he stopped? What would he say to her? Would he berate her? Would he turn from her? Would he believe her? Edith could only wait to hear, and stare. He wore no black armour now but he was still dark, caked head to heel in mud and dripping with slime, a monster from the moat, with gleaming eyes and red fangs -
No! The red was oozing blood along his side!
"You are hurt!" She started for him but he flung up an arm, twisting to hide the injury.
"A scratch, nothing, I wager. Be still, I tell you."
Unsure, she stopped at once. "My lord?" She saw him swallow and grimace. "Shall I bring you ale, my lord?"
"Anything but moat-water, woman," he growled.
"Woman" was not what she wanted to hear, but he had not repudiated her, not yet, so hope flared and so did her temper.
"I am your princess."
"You are that, and my prize, and if I ask for a drink, I do not want a discourse on the ales of Cathay."
How dare he loom at her in that way, and make such brutal claim on her and take no effort to clean the muck off his bedraggled hair?
She stalked past him, out into the bailey, and stopped. Squinting in the bright sunlight, Lucy and her babe, Teodwin and Gawain and more were there, even Maria and her infant were with them, all standing in the bailey with horses, as if returned from a pleasant ride. But the faces of those who had been branded were intent and every woman and man stared at the curtained bath.
"Come out, Giles!" shouted one suddenly.
"Face us!" cried another.
"Out! Out!"
The chant, and a slow stamping of bare and ragged feet, filled the small yard. The cowed servants huddled against the walls of the bailey, deep in shadow. The soldiers of Giles were nowhere to be seen.
Silently, Ranulf came beside her. Silently, she drew off her green silk and handed it to him to wipe his head and hands. She beckoned to Edmund and Ranulf's squire joined her, offering a flask of something from around his neck. She thanked him and for once he did not blush: he too was intent on the stamping, chanting men and women.
She gave the flask to Ranulf, but he did not drink. He scanned the battlements and the drawbridge and then bellowed, "I challenge you, Giles de Rothency! Face me now, even as I am, or be damned!"
"Nay, I demand justice!"
Another man stepped closer to the bath then turned to face Ranulf. "If you would be our new lord, then give us justice!"
"He killed my wife!"
"He lamed my son!"
"He branded us!"
Ranulf held up a hand. With unkempt hair, muddy, stripped to the waist, and half-dressed in a pair of leggings that now looked only fit to be burned, he could still command. He raised a hand and at once the small crowd fell silent, content to leave it to him.
"Come out, Rothency," he called, "and face your accusers."
The awning around the bath tumbled into the yard with a splintering of wood. Giles emerged, fully dressed, his handsome face taut and pale with anger.
"I am lord here, or have you forgotten? You have no rights over me!"
"You are wrong," said Ranulf, stepping forward, his face grim with an anger that Edith sensed he was barely controlling. His whole body was stiff and straight and rigid, as if he would make his own flesh and blood a sword. "You have broken faith with them, the worse sin for any knight."
"Shame!" cried Edmund, his voice bouncing off the bailey walls. The crowd stamped afresh.
"Sin? Against peasants?" Giles stood in the centre of the bailey, his blue eyes narrowed into slits of flint, paying the people no more heed than the courtyard flies.
Before Ranulf could answer, Teodwin limped in front of his former master. "I was your pig-man, once. I was lamed by your men, on your orders. Remember that?"
Giles would not look at him, although Teodwin in his purple tunic and clipped beard dusted with travel was hard to miss.
Lucy brought Teodwin his walking stick and nodded to her former lord. "I was once 'Many' my lord. You slept with me twice, against my will, then called me a slut and cast me to your men."
"Brute!" Teodwin stepped closer to the fair-haired maid, as if to shield her, and made the sign to avert the evil eye—against Giles. He would have gone further, Edith reckoned, but now other voices were raised.
"You killed my wife! She starved because of you!"
"You lamed my son!"
"You branded us! Look at my face! Look at what you ordered!"
"Enough!" roared Giles, venting his own anger by kicking aside the broken pieces of awning supports and cloth. "Are you gone mad, Fredenwyke?"
Edith was chilled by his arrogance, by his refusal to acknowledge anyone but a fellow knight.
Ranulf waited and then, when no other accused, he spoke.
"Sins, sir, against these good people and many others, including my Olwen, though I cannot prove that charge here and now, except in battle. Will you fight me?"
"You are mad," Giles scoffed, refusing to acknowledge the second challenge as his eyes slithered round the bailey, seeking allies who were not there. He was abandoned and he did not know it, but perhaps, too late, he was learning.
"Sins against many," Ranulf repeated, implacable as iron, "and especially against my lady here, my prize, whom you left for dead in a sacred place."
"What?" Now Giles looked puzzled but Edith was astonished, the breath knocked from her. Ranulf claimed her again even as she had been, as a villager of Warren Hemlet, whom Giles had locked into a church to die.
Truly he loves me. It does not matter to him what I am.
As if sensing her confusion, her amazement, Ranulf turned to her, and clasped her hand in his own. "Edith? Will you speak?"
Giles's frown scored down his face. "That is no eastern name."
"But it is her name. She was once your smith at Warren Hemlet, as you should have known."
Deftly, through long practice, Edith undid her veil and let it flutter to the ground. "I am as English as you, Giles," she announced, claiming her past and present together. "I am Edith, once of Warren Hemlet."
Distaste rippled across Giles's features. He glared, as if seeing her for the first time—which, as Edith, perhaps he was. "A filthy serf-woman! Aping her betters —”
He said no more. Sprinting, Ranulf reached him, swung a fist and he went down.
"Let us have him!" cried Teodwin.
"YES!" bawled the crowd.
Ranulf stared at the twitching figure. "Take him," he said. "That is my justice."
He walked back to Edith as the others closed in.
"Leave them," he said roughly, before she could speak. "Let us find a well or stream, so I can wash this filth off."
He did not mean merely the dregs of the moat and she knew it.
They turned together and walked swiftly away, out of the bailey of Chastel d'Or, away from the urgent scuffles and shouts, out across the drawbridge and moat, escaping into the cool green woodland. She tried to find him fresh water but he found the narrow, rushing stream ahead of her and splashed it over himself, using her green silk as a wash-cloth. Finally, he shook himself like a dog and she could wait no longer.
"I have to tell you," she began, breaking off as he turned to look at her.
"Yes?"
She did not want to blush but she could not stop it.
"Lover?" The endearment flew from Ranulf's lips. It wrung him that she was so nervous at times, even after all they had enjoyed and also endured, still at times afraid with him. She looked haunted now, her eyes huge.
"He did not touch me, except for this." She stepped closer and he saw the darkening bruise along her cheek and jaw. "If you require it, I will swear that—pig—did not touch me."
Pity and love warred in him and both were victors.
"No need," he said, and he opened his arms.
Next instant he thought, I am still as foul as a garderobe, but then none of that mattered. She slammed against him, heedless of any stubborn mud and slime, and then her silks were fil
thy and they were both laughing: she was crying and laughing together.
"Hush, hush!" Her weeping alarmed him even as he thought the small spot of grease on her cheek from his arm completely endearing. He wiped it off and scowled: his rub had made the spot worse.
"I love you, princess-prize," he said quickly, before she noticed. "You can lie as much as you like, for me."
It was true. In her heart she was as true as any knight, as generous and brave. The rest was surface, and a very pretty, exasperating, beguiling surface. Careless of his own state, he kissed her deeply, wrapping his arms tightly around her.
"Soon we must marry," he said, when she drew back a little.
"Are you, sure, Rannie? You claimed me just now as a simple smith."
"Never simple!" His jubilation welled afresh at her pretty frown and her use of her pet name for him. "You are the first eastern-princess-smith of England, I wager, and all in all a most fit wife for me. But come now, where is your ring?"
She scooped a finger into her bodice and brought out their betrothal ring, sparkling on its rough cloth cord. "I feared I might have to swallow this," she admitted. "I am so glad I did not need to."
"So am I," Ranulf began, before a certain knowing gleam in Edith's eyes made him break off.
"You—!" He shook a finger at her, gave up and laughed. "We shall have a lively, loving marriage, my prize. Very lively."
"Yes, my lord," said Edith.
She was content.
END
Lindsay Townsend has written many other books, medieval and modern, romance and mystery.
To learn more, please visit http://www.lindsaytownsend.co.uk and http://www.amazon.com/Lindsay-Townsend/e/B000API55C
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 113